Getting social with WorldCat.org

By Tom Storey

Give your users a new way to engage with the library. Encourage them to add content to records in WorldCat.org, the collections of WorldCat libraries. Users can create custom lists of their favorite books, songs, albums or movies—and share these lists with friends, family and fellow library lovers. They also can enter notes, reviews and tables of contents under the Details and Reviews tabs for any item.

Here’s how:

Lists

1. Go to WorldCat.org and sign in to your account (or create a new account by entering a user name, password and e-mail address).

2. Go to the Lists button at the top of the page. Select My Lists from the dropdown menu.

3. Click on Create New List, enter your List Name and choose whether your list will be private, or can be viewed by all WorldCat.org users.

4. Begin adding records to your list by searching WorldCat.org, displaying records and highlighting the list name in the Save It box and clicking Save.

More than 35,000 lists have been created since WorldCat’s new list-making functionality was installed in June 2007. And the creativity found in these lists is fascinating, with categories ranging from “Organic Chemistry” to “Good Read-Alouds for Older Adults.”

Librarians are using this new functionality to better serve their users with lists of newly cataloged publications, under-used collections, and topical “how-to” resources that highlight the library’s holdings.

Reviews

1. Go to WorldCat.org and sign in to your account.

2. Go to the Search button at the top of the page. Select Search for Library Items from the drop-down menu.

3. Enter a search and display a record.

4. Under the Add To It box, select Review This Item, fill out the Web form and click Submit Review. Or, select the Reviews tab, click on Write An Online Review, fill out the Web form and click Submit.

Notes, tables of contents

The process for adding notes or tables of contents is the same as that for adding reviews, except you select the Details tab in the record display.

Detail notes remain freely editable by all users, while reviews can be revised only by their original authors. Users can return at any time, log in and create or revise content.

Enriching WorldCat with user-contributed content enriches library catalogs. The ability for your users to contribute content will make them more dedicated stakeholders to the library and their library experience more meaningful.

This functionality will be expanded even more in 2008, so stay tuned!

Facebook app

A new WorldCat Facebook application provides access to WorldCat searches and user-created lists from personalized pages within a Facebook account. The application includes a home screen with the WorldCat search box, as well as quick links to WorldCat searches based on topics listed in a Facebook profile as personal interests. Introduced in January 2008, the WorldCat Facebook application has more than 3,300 users.

A new voice | Next-gen cataloging